From Ritz to Rubble
by Sdhfs
Summary: A rehash of a story i abandoned long ago, a chronicle of instances in the way i think a person like the LW could be shaped, will contain multiple OC's that i hope are the sort of entertaining if slightly phychotic sort you'd find in a post nuclear wasteland. I'd like to think of it as a story that starts at the Lone Wanderer's inept beginnings to his horrifyingly bittersweet end.
1. Chapter 1

Overseer's terminal – Personnel Files – Entry 1142

Alex Vallon – Son to Vault Physician.

Once again I find myself having to spend my precious time reading through another report of violence between Butch's Tunnel Snake gang and our Physician's son. This outburst isn't a random occurrence but a pitched battle between our younger male vault residents, I have found uses for Butch's gang of miscreants and would allow them to knock some sense into James's equally arrogant son if they were ever able to do so. It seems now more than ever Xavier is able to inflict just as much injury upon Butch or those other louts for all the good they are.

I think it is not inevitable that the young man's ever increasing ego cannot be curbed, which aggravates me to no end, the young man reminds me off his father in nearly every aspect, right down to the condescending tone when discussing an aspect he is knowledgeable in, just like his father with his damn near impossible to replace medical skills.

The boy himself isn't as skilled as his father but can fill in adequately when Jonas is unavailable, I find that even with his youth the boy is as competent with repairing and maintaining the vaults machinery and gear as competently as our maintenance leader Stanley. I also believe he is the one responsible for the break in's in the alcohol replicators.

How he manages to be as apt in his studies when all he does is sit down in the maintenance level shooting radroaches is beyond me. I have also heard from my sources in the Tunnel Snakes that he had an illicit few nights with Christine Kendall, one of the vaults more attractive young females. It is obvious to me that this young man is as charismatic to members of the opposite sex as he is repulsive to a man such as myself, I sincerely hope Xavier would not be as foolish as to try such a thing with my dear daughter Amata, especially as my attempts to separate them are for naught.

I have no great love for this boy or his father for that matter, on a personnel level I find both to be egotistical and bloated in self worth, the fact that both are capable means however that I cannot simply arrange for them to have accidents as has been done previous with other troublesome members in the vault.

My duties as the overseer as always come first, even before that as a father or man.

This is how it feels to be Xavier, son of James and the latest escapee from vault 101 as you shove open the broken down door of your home. Countless thoughts cloud your train of thought as your mind races just as fast as your heart, how the last hour of your life has destroyed it, there will be no more bickering with the butch, pestering Amata or aggravating the overseer as your life in your home, it has been flushed out.

Your father, the last of your family deemed you unworthy of anything more than a cell in the vault security office, if you where luckier than Jonas that is. Your body stings from baton blows received during your escapee but your father's betrayal stings with more venom that the sum of these combined. How could he not have known what the man was capable off, did he not take a look through the tyrants old files before he made his run from the vault, did he not see what sort of lies and actions the man was capable off.

Did he really even care at all you wonder?

It's impossible for you to consider the full implications of your escape from the vault however one thing is for sure, this is that you will never be able to return with anything short of an army. You wear John Kendall's body armor over your own vault suit both in an attempt to sneak by any guards that you come across, secondly to have something to protect you from the near debilitating baton blows you received at that officers hands. You don't know if you killed that particular officer but you do know that Richards and O'Brian most likely won't be spending another day rotting in the vault, you got the drop of them with the overseer's pistol after all, with Paul Hannon left pooling in his own blood your welcome is more than warn out.

When escaping from the vault you managed to still some medicines, food and ammunition so that at least while your isolated in an irradiated wasteland you'll not starve to death or be eaten by a radioactive termite, well not right away.

You open the door with one last surge and you feel for what is the first time the sun bleeds across your face, searing your eyes and forcing you to your knees in agony.

Now would be good a good time to remember all of those years yearning to get out of your hole in the ground, and the irony of your current situation. Vault 101, a place where nobody ever enters and nobody ever leaves indeed.

Somewhere just beyond in the wastes your father travels to where you have no idea, leaving you behind for dead. You don't idle but instead make your way towards the nearest collection of ruins. Your thoughts are filled with the possible reasoning of your father, everything comes up a muddle. There is no alternative for you, one thing is surely certain, you must find your father and find out what was so important that he would have left you behind to your fate.

And if there is no satisfactory answer, nothing that would justify such an action, for Jonas and whatever you left Amata too, you honestly don't know who you'll have cause to blame.


	2. Near Misses

Selene hated slavers, loathed them from their wretched rotten faces with all the cruelty and malice that could be seen through their feral eyes, to their black hearts and soulless corpses. All of them were devils that had sprung free in a land as horrible enough to allow them, the capital wasteland; all of them were just advertising their heads to her.

It engulfed the waking part of her hours for the most, sometimes those that were not, nearly all the malice she held within her burning heart was reserved for them. So when she came by a slaver party; fifteen men deep travelling across the barrens towards Paradise Falls there was only one thing on her mind, rooted against a craggy outcropping of rock against the radiation poisoned sun, all of them needed to die.

The two who had travelled with her from crow territory didn't agree, a man and a boy who spoke like people who were decent, companionable even. Men alike who would be willing to sit and let people be dragged off to rot in some hellhole just to save their own skins, the sort of men who spoke big in the drinking holes and whore houses yet weren't there for the moment.

It made her burn with rage; she could barely restrain herself from turning her weapon on them, she'd met a hundred, a thousand men like them before, cowards, sacks of meat without any morality beyond what was trouble-free.

They were all she had against men who could quickly overrun the advantage provided by the sun glare and hill cover however, so she got close to them at a whisper; telling Hyde, the under endowed failure of a merc and his wannabe piss pants tagalong Howard, exactly what they'd be facing if they didn't get behind her.

They hardly forgot who had got them through crowd territory, or who had sprung them for food in the barren straits across the northern wastes, she was far more capable of violence than either of them to boot.

They decided it was in their best interests before the group of slavers passed them by completely, a good thing too given the rough plan that was thought up on the fly.

It included all the destruction the horrible bastards deserved, with Selene and Hyde both pulling the pin on the mk. 2 frag grenades they'd picked up in Sharptown, thrown with enough precision to land them either side of the long string of men and away from the captives in the middle.

Like traders; outcast or mercenaries slavers marched with men in front and behind, pooled both sides to pervert their 'merchandise' deciding to run off when trouble arose, it made for compelling viewing for Selene.

Two men were torn apart on either side of their line, two others hit with flak from the waist up leaving them concussed and useless at the forefront, Selene, Hyde and Howard had their guns up as the grenades went free.

Selene used an old M14 rifle; like the grenades from the army surplus that the gun runners in the fortified town had unearthed years ago, even worn as it was she managed to drop two of the slavers in quick succession, their chests exploding with dirt and grime from the road.

Hyde had less luck firing off three shots with a humpback shotgun, hitting only one man who had the plate armour to shrug it off, Howard's efforts with his M1911 were pathetic, he was down covering himself before Selene had even considered it.

They were down to eleven men; eight or nine effectively firing back, their bullets glancing off the foot thick cover available to them, Selene had counted only four assault rifles and some small capacity shotguns amongst them, poor fare as her blood rushed, Hyde was beside her effectively reloading his five action shotgun - practised against the frantic efforts of Howard.

More shots glanced off the rock in an attempt to cow them; shouts could be heard with one voice above all, screaming with a profanity as only a slaver captain could for his men to scale the hill.

Stupid if they had limited ammunition, and in the wasteland that was always the case, slavers never were the smartest however.

"Get behind that cover on the right, wait for them to get up the hill" Selene told Hyde while she ejected the mostly spent cartridge, setting a new one in place before she unclipped the cover guard of her sidearm holster.

"What are you doing then?" he asked while cocking his shotgun, going on his hunkers almost to the small rock side that would allow cover when the mercenaries came up on the right incline of the hill, "Just put down any of them that come up the hill. Here" she growled while tossing him their last grenade, glad to see the man still had some remnance of professionalism.

She got down against the very precipice the face of the rock on its leftmost side, overlooking a drop that was perhaps twenty feet or more, broken up with two small grooves that she could use to break the fall.

She saw the five captives kneeling down in the dirt, a ditch offering them some semblance of protection, two men; three women, all grown, one in a vault suit, which peaked her curiosity before she heard Howard fire off a few panicked shots.

Selene braced her weapon nose end up and leapt down, falling seven feet before impacting against the first groove, her knees driving her weapon end up past her face harmlessly.

She caught it well however; being able to balance herself before dropping again to impact the second groove, she misjudged it, thinking it was solid more than the weakened sand it turned out to be, causing her to ply through it and go face planting onto the arid ground.

It was as short as two seconds in where she couldn't pull herself up from the ground, jarred by the sudden impact, enough for the remaining slaver not fighting his way up the hill to see her give a shit eating grin, before bringing his shotgun up to force her surrender or kill her outright.

She couldn't react in time; she could only do what was expected of any person facing sudden death, freezing and making what was surely a wide eyed face, the rage and anger leaving her as the crippling shock sunk in.

That was until one of the captured barrelled into his side, barely managing to knock the man down in his heavy metal armour, Selene grabbed her weapon quickly and went to turn the tables, finding instead that the blue jump suited 'man' was on top of the man attempting to bludgeon him with his fists alone.

She heard a flurry of shots ring out from the rocks above her, screams and shouting intermingling with all the horror that faced someone in a shootout. The prisoners had fled the short ditch ten feet further away while those two men downed by her grenade wailed on the floor, the vault boy went to bring his tied wrists up once again to batter the metal slaver again.

She noticed the 101 on his back, a moment before his arms came down and he screamed, flailing about to get away from his would be victim, a slaver peered over the hill at the sound. Selene turned and fired out two shots that sent him back over the hill in a mess of skull fragments and brain matter.

Seven left perhaps? too many still yet not quite enough, a grenade exploded, more screams, the metal slaver went for his weapon and Selene made him pay the price for it, blowing a chunk out of his arm even with the protection afforded there.

He screamed like she had, _futile and coarse_, four slavers retreated off the mountainside in panic, dust ridden and staggered. They didn't have any of the explosives or heavy weapons available to their sort who pursued things further in the wastes, Selene fired off four more shots catching two of the men.

The remaining two turned their weapons on her; but she had already pulled her pistol free, firing seven rounds in the time it took them to level their own short arm and sawed off alike, two bullets hit the short arm in his leather chest while three others caught sawed off once in the leg, twice across the lower abdomen.

Metal screamed as two more shots from Hyde's shotgun rang out from above, a moment later he was down the hill with Howard shuffling behind, neither of them looking more than a little dirty and alert.

"Two of them escaped across the hillside, running straight for Paradise. They'll get there within the arm or maybe sooner if their patrols pick them up" The man looked not a little pleased, more afraid of the repercussions if anything else, Howard who she always thought looked more like a tanned rat than a man held wonder in his eyes, "That was insane" he told her with a tint of glee to his voice, she took satisfaction seeing the youth taking pleasure in their slaughter unashamedly.

"We have no rifles; we'll have to let them go" she dropped the magazine from her pistol for a fresh one, bringing her remnant to a pair left for either of her weapons, "Howard find the keys on the one in the metal, then execute him." She ignored the questioning glance Hyde gave her "Hyde get up the hill and find whatever other weapons and ammunition you can find, deal with any of them you find alive."

He looked ready to protest, more afraid of the repercussions that taking their lives more likely if they were caught up to, they were already far too deep in things to do anything by a half measure anymore though, numbly he did just that.

_At least he can still be counted on in the moment_ she thought that was the only real positive to the fleshy sack, approaching the captive who had managed to knock the metal slaver over before, him now wailing in the dirt as Howard beat him across the head with his own weapon "You did me a favour back there. Not many slaves would think of attacking their own masters in two lifetimes. Though I suppose you haven't been a slave for long, being a vault dweller?" He was just like she expected a vault dweller to be, skin like white polish rather than sun beaten leather, pearly white teeth and barely without the stink that engulfed most wasters. He was handsome; not quite a mysterious stranger, but he had calm blue eyes and a strong jaw.

He couldn't have been any more than twenty years old, with a slight build attributed more too easy life than lack of nutrition, his only claim to a rough look being a welted lip and slightly swollen left eye, not to mention the pumping slice between the thumb and finger of his left hand.

"I...no I haven't no. I was never a slave, they didn't have the chance to make me one" he replied, sounding strange and accented to her ears, none of the vitriolic slang in his calm tone, "Can you get this collar off me? I don't fancy meeting up with one of those patrols, or anymore of these fiends."

She could; Howard had gotten the key from the now profusely bleeding head slaver as he occurred to be, Hyde had managed to find three assault rifles, a shotgun, three revolvers and two semi-automatic pistols on top of the mountain, most useless without ammunition, the food supplies and whatever surplus had been carried by the prisoners themselves.

They were in all not as impressive as finding a vault dweller, typical wastelanders who'd been unfortunate, stupid or just plain wretched enough to fall in the slavers hands.

She told the older of the pair to toss the weapons that were without ammunition, unlock the other collars as she'd done for the 101 dweller, they'd need to be armed, more targets for anyone following.

"How did you get here" she asked him, compelled by his fair skin and distinct look, "What's your name?"

"It's Alex, I got here when I tried to stop the slavers taking Silver over there. The lady with the silver hair" he told her matter of fact, stupidly . "My shot wasn't so good, I missed and one of them got behind me, I was lucky they didn't kill me."

He wasn't as lucky as he thought, vault dwellers were rare to the point of myth, having one as your slave would be a massive boon to any slave who could afford the price of it, slavers worked in those sick ways.

She couldn't pretend he didn't interest her however, he was the most interesting person she'd met this side of the pits, a person from before the war, without the corruption of the wastelands.

he was still in shock, bleeding despite his numb attempts to mute it, "We haven't got time to look at your wound right now, we'll stem it for now" he nodded again, breathing out a sigh of relief, Howard stood over the metal slaver with the man's own shotgun at the ready.

He looked ready to shoot, perhaps not knowing what he was about to take or just not caring, Selene couldn't relate to the fear of ending someone's life, it was two lifetimes ago when she could, "kill him" she ordered, the shotgun erupted and blood spatter engulfed the young man, vault 101 looked at the action in shock.

No blood in the vaults, no necessary or even unwarranted executions, no wasteland justice to be dispensed according to peoples own perversions or persecutions, it was something foreign.

That was mostly forgotten though as the rest of the captives began to speak up, begging them to lead them away from Paradise falls, most of them still holding fear behind their eyes.

Apart from the run down looking woman Alex had mentioned, the other trio of wastelanders were forgettable, two men and a woman similarly broken looking and winded from the ordeal.

Silver didn't look half as bad as them; perhaps she was use to the threat of violence and slavery, perhaps a little too much as she saw the woman eye her warily, "Let's get out of here" Selene ordered, watching Hyde divvy up the weapons which were still useable, those being of course the revolvers and short range semi-automatics.

Selene picked up one of the assault rifles, checked the magazine as shoddy as it was, seeing that it had only held six rounds, Hyde hadn't shot a man on the hillside, while not going near the two men bleeding out slowly further on the barren track.

Fragmentation grenades too often let people away far too easily with shrapnel, Selene wouldn't let any of these bastards anyway with an inch, approaching the two downed men she quickly emptied the clip three bullets a piece into them, both going still.

When she turned away Hyde and Alex the vault boy were looking at her together wide undisguised stares, she wondered if Alex was thinking the same thing that Hyde was.

* * *

A damp wall; leaky roof, barely any lighting that flickered on and off as it pleased, the great underground transport system of the commonwealth was turning out to be as big a fail as everything else Alex had experienced in the wasteland so far.

Towns ripped to pieces; a skyline blotted with an irradiated hue, slavers and scumbags of every sort of worst nightmare that he could have expected, the 'capital wastelands' was a nightmare, civilisation had long been gone from the former capital.

Alex for his part did not let it show just how horrified he was, not since he was chased away from the entry of vault 101 by a pair of rabid dogs, not when he was hit across the head with a rifle butt.

He didn't even blanch when the slaver; George (a letdown for a slaver all things considered) threatened to leave him an eye short, he just stayed silent and kept his eyes for his show of defiance, pathetic as it was.

Now he was sitting in a group including the people who had saved him from whatever horrible things slavers done to slaves, yet he felt no safer, not when the threat of everything else was around him.

supermutants, slavers, raiders and feral ghouls, he didn't even know what half of those things were, yet they were all as horrible in that order apparently, out to get people who weren't willing to kill and maim along with them.

Why did James leave him for this? Why when he had everything he needed in vault 101.

It was boring; horribly boring, promising only a long and uninteresting life, but that was better than a short and terrifying one, wasn't it?

"How's the hand" Selene; the leader of the trio that had saved them asked, no gentleness in her always intense tone, though it held no real steel now, "Fine, I've always have had a problem with my hands, I'm always getting them caught in the reactor room machinery or stabbing myself."

That sounded stupid, which she confirmed by raising a brow in confusion, "I have a bad time with knives, I always keep them pointed against myself when I use them. My father use to say I've had more accidents than dinners" he explained; which made her smile lightly but not laugh, he didn't think she was capable of laughter.

It wasn't that she was some visage of rancour, she had saved them from the slavers after all; and if anything she was the very opposite of that, something closer to a beauty of the wastelands - that is thorny and capable of more than a simple prick, yet scarred also, a cold blood killer that served as 'good' in the wastelands.

Her face was all taut skin against angular features, the left cheek from the curve of her jaw to under her eye a swollen scar of torn skin that looked to have set an ages ago, which he supposed was like the body beneath her grey body armour and fatigues, supple but scared as life treated wastelanders. Betrayed as she moved across the sands of the ruined ground. He imagined it was what one of the great cats of the old world moved like, from the holovids he'd seen.

"You should always keep you're knife away from yourself and towards your enemy, preferably rooted into them if you can manage it" she told him with what he imagined was her humour, it was her eyes he paid attention to, they were just as dark as the night that had fallen, matching her hair swept up behind her neck.

"I do try, though I always was a bit of a liability, I don't think I'm going to do so well out here. I did manage to get knocked down by a guy coming back from the toilet" she did actually _laughed _then, lightly and gone so quickly that you could have imagined it didn't happen, he felt a small surge of pride being able to pull it from her, she was the sort he imagined people never expected anything but her sharp tone from.

"It takes time to get use to all_ this_, all the killing; the skill needed for it" The rest of them were asleep as far as he could tell, drifting off well before the hour was out according to his pip-boy.

He couldn't help but wonder why she was talking to him, when the rest of them were too exhausted to continue, even if she'd not been tired then why?

She treated those already with her with nothing resembling veiled dislike, barely wasted breath on those that had thanked her, as opposed to Hyde and Howard who had swarmed around Silver and the other girl Hannah like they were the last women left, "Why are you talking to me?" he asked, realizing how rude he sounded "I mean you don't seem to talk much to anyone - not even the two guys with you?"

"Because you're interesting" she replied quickly and straight to it, "You're from a vault, I've never met anyone from a vault before. It makes you interesting; it makes everyone else here less interesting, because there just wasteland trash that I couldn't care about if they paid me."

He didn't know what to say to that, staring at her dumbly long enough for her to notice, he looked like an idiot "Why are you here for?" she asked him finally, still regarding him with her cool stare "You don't even know how rare you are. There hasn't been a vault dweller heard off since some half crazed one was found wandering up near Canterbury Commons."

"My father left the vault, I came to find him" he answered without hesitation, she rescued him after all, it didn't half bother him that he'd been so callous in killing those men, they were monsters "I just got mixed up with all this, I saw a big fortress or something nearby before I got caught. I should have gone there" She _ahhh_ in response to that, "Megaton, more of a town than a fortress if it can even be called that. That's where we're headed, maybe you'll meet him there."

"Maybe" was all he could say, overwhelmed suddenly, if he didn't find him there then what? What would he do, just go pitch a seat outside 101? Stay in this Megaton and do what, shave cows or maybe die in the gutter."What do you do?" he asked her, giving her reason to be confused in a nice exchange of pace "I mean to earn money, caps or whatever. I'm going to have to find my father, he might not be there." Her answer was less than what he hoped.

"I do what everyone else does if they can, I kill people and take their things, if there bad and sometimes if there good, though you could fill the second group up in one hand." she told him without remorse for her words, highlighting just how terrible a place it was.

He didn't want to kill people, maybe slavers and super mutants, but life was life, his father had always taught him that.

_Family is the most important thing we have Son, you and you're mother are all that matters to me _was another thing he'd said once upon a time, how true had that turned out to be.

Selene must have saw beyond his face, "get some sleep" she told him, getting up and prowling away, to her own rough corner of the subway station, he desperately wished she would have stayed in his, he would have taken Butch at for conciliation right now.

Maybe he would have nightmares tonight, maybe they'd be worse than the nightmare he was living now.


End file.
